My life is friggin' awesome because I do this everyday...

Every yoga session, I finish by asking students to focus on their hearts and think of something they are really grateful for. And I close by saying, “Be grateful for your healthy body. Namaste.”

This past weekend was super awesome, and in the middle of a party while everyone was dancing, I found myself looking around at my friends, my life, and how I was feeling with a huge smile on my face and screamed, “thank you, thank you, thank you” on this inside. I even went up to people individually and thanked them for their amazingness.

I began practicing gratitude about a year ago. This may sound strange to “practice” gratitude, but it is a practice like yoga and meditation. It’s something to be conscious of and something to do daily and whenever the opportunity arises. Counting my blessings has increased the number of blessings in my life.

Over the past year, my life has greatly changed for the better. I definitely owe it to yoga, meditation, and choosing to live from my heart. And at the same time, I owe it to gratitude. Ever since I started practicing gratitude everything in my life flows more easily and effortlessly. Things happen at the perfect moment. Life is great!

When we are grateful, we attract more goodness into our lives because what we focus on expands. Our thoughts are energy and bringing our attention to all the amazing people, things, experiences, and occurrences in our lives results in more of this good stuff.

This sounds really simple— because it is. If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself. Every morning when I wake up, before getting out of bed or before starting meditation, I think of 3 things I’m really grateful for. I choose anything that makes my life brighter, more wonderful, and brings a smile to my face— from the people I love to the simple things like having a warm bed to sleep in every night. While focusing on my heart I think about these things and I feel that feeling of gratitude in my heart and I say thank you three times. Most evenings I do this again while laying in bed before drifting off to sleep. And I always say thank you when something awesome happens.